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for the presentation of the Hermann Kesten Prize 2015
The Sujet Verlag of the publisher , is a success story that took place on Bremen soil. Having fled Iran into exile in Germany in the early 1990s, Madjid Mohit settled in Bremen and founded Sujet Verlag. In 2015 he was awarded the renowned PEN Hermann Kesten Prize. At the end of 2018 he received the Bremen Diversity Prize as "Diversity Personality".
""Sujet" means "subject" in Persian and is therefore an ideal name for a publishing house that takes on the big taboo topics of Mohit's homeland, such as politics, sexuality, modernity and persecution.
Sujet Verlag publishes volumes of poetry, with a focus on modern Iranian poetry, novels and non-fiction. However, he is particularly distinguished by the so-called "air root literature" - a poetic expression for a literature that transcends borders and does not want to be squeezed into narrow terms.
In contrast to the rather negatively connoted concept of exile literature, the Aerial root literature emphasises the enriching aspect of living in exile. The focus is not on the wistful look at home and complaints, but on the personal description of life in different cultures. Aerial roots do not stick to borders, but grow beyond them. They anchor themselves not only in one place, but in several. They are mobile, alive and react to their environment. Humans also put down aerial roots. They travel, emigrate, flee. They leave their home behind and find a new one. They don't just feel like they belong in one place, but in several, they have a complex cultural identity.
The term air roots unites globalized movement with local roots. What seems contradictory is closely connected and corresponds to the reality of life of the authors, who shape a literature that itself has aerial roots. Aerial root literati do not live between cultures, but within them. Her literary work serves to see people differently and to promote understanding. The air root literature enables the reader to take a cross-border perspective and to find a creative and unique approach to other cultures.
The Sujet Verlag is a success story that took place on Bremen soil. Fled from Iran to Germany into exile in the early 1990s , he settled down in Bremen and founded the Sujet Verlag. In 2015 he was awarded the renowned Hermann Kesten Prize PEN. At the end of 2018, he received the Bremen Diversity Prize as a "Diversity Personality".
"Sujet" means topic in Persian and is therefore an ideal name for a publishing house that, among other things, takes on the major taboo topics in Iran: politics, sexuality, modernity and persecution.
The publishing house publishes volumes of poetry, with a focus on modern poetry, novels and non-fiction. However, it is particularly distinguished by the so-called "aerial root literature" - a poetic expression for a literature that transcends borders and does not want to be fitted into narrow terms.
In contrast to the rather negatively connoted concept of exile literature, the Aerial root literature emphasises the enriching aspect of living in exile. The focus is not on the wistful look at home and complaints, but on the personal description of life in different cultures. Aerial roots do not stick to borders, but grow beyond them. They anchor themselves not only in one place, but in several. They are mobile, alive and react to their environment. Humans also put down aerial roots. They travel, emigrate, flee. They leave their home behind and find a new one. They don't just feel like they belong in one place, but in several, they have a complex cultural identity.
The term aerial root combines globalized movement with native roots. What seems to be contradictory is closely linked and corresponds to the reality of the authors' lives. They do not live between cultures, but in them. Their literary work serves to see differently and to communicate. Aerial root literature allows the reader to take a cross-border perspective and to find a creative and unique approach to other cultures.